Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carried out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
In many rack-mounted computer systems, circuit boards for the system are housed in a rack-mounted chassis. The chassis is commonly in the form of box having metal panels on the front, back, sides, bottom, and top (the top often in the form of a removable lid). Such a chassis may consume a significant amount of space in a rack. Moreover, such a chassis may add cost and complexity to the computer system.
Computer systems typically include a number of components that generate waste heat. Such components include processors, mass storage devices, and power supplies. For example, some computers with multiple processors may generate 250 watts of waste heat. Typically, each chassis in the rack has air vents in the front and rear panels. An external cooling system causes air to flow through the front vents, over heat producing component in the rack, and out through the back vents. In many cases, heat sinks, heat pipes or other components are required to achieve an adequate cooling of the heat producing components of a system. These components and the associated parts such as mounting brackets, spring clips, and fasteners, add cost and complexity to a system, over an above that of the chassis itself.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.